A Prince's Lesson
by harunekonya
Summary: Years have passed since Balsa had protected Prince Chagum. He contemplates the way he's changed, and thinks about Balsa.


**A/N:** This was written shortly after I'd finished watching _Serei no Moribito_ a few years back, which I've decided to repost here now. While I had enjoyed the ending, I really wanted to see more of Chagum and how his life with Balsa would have changed him and his experience at court. This is the result.

**A Prince's Lessons**

"Master Shuga," the barely fourteen-year-old prince said. Behind him, his personal tutor stirred, and Chagum sensed the man's gaze on his back.

"What is it, Prince Chagum?" the star diviner said.

"Am I strange?" Chagum asked quietly. He gazed out the window thoughtfully, the brush in his hand carefully poised over a scroll. Shuga was supposed to be supervising him while he attempted to write an analytical essay on the historical poem _A Dialogue of Two Poor Men_, but the man did not chastise the prince for what to anyone else looked like an attempt to postpone his studies.

"Has anyone said anything?" Shuga said.

"Nothing," Chagum replied with a smile. "I suppose it's idle curiosity. Everyone must wonder if he's strange at some point in his life, and now is my time."

"I see," the tutor said.

In truth Chagum had not been wholly honest. He'd first heard it a few weeks ago. A chance conversation, heard just as he was turning the corner on his way to the summons of the Emperor. Chagum had heard the whispers of the servants and paused to listen, and that's when he'd heard it.

_"The Prince… he's gotten strange ever since he's come back."_

He'd waited until the servants had moved on, storing the moment until a time when he could go over it more closely. It had surprised him; not the sentiment, but that it would be stated so plainly. Until that moment, 'strange' would not have been the word he'd have used to describe himself.

Different.

It had not taken long for Chagum to feel that. He'd sensed it immediately after he'd greeted his Lady Mother. There was something in the way he saw things; the way he noticed how she had held herself, aloof, even surrounded by her maidens. The expressions on their faces when _they_ saw him, the look of _their _unmistakable relief and joy, Chagum had seen it all. Where once his world would have narrowed to the select people standing before him, it now encompassed everything and everyone. His previous empty gestures of kindness—the thoughtless act of a royal scion with more than he could ever want—took on a deeper meaning.

The moment he'd tried to confirm this difference was shortly after. Dressed in clothing appropriate to the Royal Heir, he'd knelt before the Emperor. Chagum had said no more than a few words when the Emperor had cut him off. Her name was never to be mentioned in front of him again, the Emperor had said. It was then that Chagum had known without a doubt that the difference he'd felt was real, and moreover, that it would be permanent. He would not disobey the Emperor who was also his father. From that moment on, at least no where in the Emperor's hearing, he'd never mentioned her name again.

But the Emperor could not stop him from thinking Balsa's name, though Chagum admittedly did not think too hard about her. His new duties as the Royal Heir filled most of his days, leaving him little time to think of anything else. At first, during his rare moments of idleness, he had felt pangs of guilt.

That had soon dropped away when he had realized that he didn't need to think about Balsa. She was bound tightly to his difference, his strangeness, and could not be separated.

Three months after his return to the palace, Chagum had noticed one of the maid servants during a solitary noon meal. She was an older woman, her hands rough from a life of hard labor, with a round, kind face. Her eyes though, hungered at the food she set before him, until finally Chagum couldn't bear it any longer.

"Are you hungry?" he'd asked her, startling the servant so that she'd nearly dropped the wine flask she'd been carrying.

"The palace feeds me well, My Lord," she'd finally said, and Chagum had caught sight of fingers growing taut with tension. He'd noted her omission, but said nothing overt.

"All this food," he'd said, looking over the tables of tiny dishes, three-fourths of which he would never taste. "What happens when I become full?"

The other servants who had come to serve him froze in their place. Then nearly as one, they began to back out of the room. Seeing that she was being abandoned, the maid servant was forced to answer.

"They are thrown away, My Lord."

"That's no good at all!" Chagum had said, feigning anger. "Recently I've found myself longing to eat more after a meal, and I'd have liked to have been able to continue eating some of these dishes later, during my studies."

"We could always make new dishes for you My—"

"I want to eat the ones made for me already!" He had looked over at the maid servant, whose eyes had grown wide. "You are to make sure that none of this is to be thrown away. I am ordering you in charge of this. You and you alone shall know how much is left over." He had then walked over to her, then quietly, in a voice only she could hear, "Even if your children aren't starving, I'm sure they would appreciate something else to eat."

He'd heard a gasp. Then with a trembling voice that had held the hint of tears, "Thank you, My Lord."

The thank you had been expected, but what came afterward was not. In the form of four words, it had struck Prince Chagum from behind as he had left the dining room.

_"How did he know?"_

He'd paused, but had known better than to reply. After all, it hadn't been something he had been meant to hear. The answer to the question had been obvious the moment the stunned servant woman had voiced her question.

Prince Chagum had known, because Balsa had taught him.

Balsa who had taught him what hunger was, and with it, pain. She'd taught him what it meant to be exhausted, what it felt like to be terrified beyond belief, to feel sorrow and hopelessness so deep that not even the greatest poet of Yogo Empire could adequately describe it. Things which no Royal Heir should ever have known, he'd learned them all. Felt them, lived them. It was enough to horrify even the most open-minded citizen.

However, in his heart, he thanked her. For she had not left him without the tools to overcome the lessons she'd set for him. He'd found out that left alone on a rainy day, even with wolves closing in behind him, he had the ability to go for help. Against a boy older and stronger than him, Chagum had learned that even he with his slight build could still win. When winter had been at its darkest and coldest, under Balsa's care, he had learned where food could be found.

And most important of all, he'd learned that when it seemed like Death was but a foregone conclusion, when even the wisest would have given up hope, Balsa, armed with only a spear, could protect him.

Important lessons. Unforgettable lessons. Just like Balsa herself.

Behind him, Shuga stirred, as if sensing that Chagum was ready to hear his tutor's answer.

"It would be far stranger still, for you to have gone through what you have, and remained the same," Shuga said.

"I will not return to what I once was," Chagum said. Then he smiled, turning his head around to look at his tutor. "Rather, I cannot," he corrected himself.

"That is good to hear," the star diviner said. His eyes softened, and the briefest glimmer of a smile appeared on his face. The following moments passed in silence, but Chagum waited patiently, knowing that that Shuga wasn't done. Finally, patience rewarded, the older man spoke again. "There is word on the street. A woman carrying a spear was spotted a few days ago entering the city."

Now Chagum spun around completely, staring at Shuga with what must have been silly, wide-eyed shock. Shuga's expression didn't change a hair except to deepen his smile into one of intense satisfaction. The older man waited patiently for Chagum to school himself back into a more dignified expression.

"Shuga, this afternoon, and the following afternoons this week and perhaps many more after, I will be having great difficulty with my lessons," Chagum finally said. "Only you will be allowed to disturb me while I'm studying."

"You will need to eat, Prince Chagum," Shuga chided gently.

"Of course," Chagum said. "Have the servants serve me at the usual hour."

The stiffness that had been growing around his tutor's shoulders instantly relaxed.

"If you are going to be studying so much, you will need more comfortable clothes. I will see that they are brought to you," the star diviner finished, before standing up.

"Thank you."

An hour later, Chagum left the palace, no longer Prince and Heir of the Yogo Empire. He passed once again by familiar buildings, and heard the sound of a voice he hadn't heard in far too long.

It was time for Chagum's next lesson.


End file.
